The fundamental Coase of development: property rights foundations of the effective state

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52
Author(s):  
Ennio E. Piano ◽  
Alexander W. Salter
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
State Governance ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
City State

AbstractThis paper identifies political property rights and jurisdictional rivalry as two important mechanisms that drive political and economic development. After developing a general framework to explain relative performance in the ‘market for governance’, we argue that Western Europe during the High Middle Ages presented initial conditions conducive to the development of effective states. We extend the framework by analyzing city-state governance in Renaissance Italy, as well as public finance practices in early modern Germany. We conclude by discussing the implications of our argument for the literature on state capacity and economic development. The takeaway is that well-aligned political property rights and competition in the provision of governance services can promote the protective and productive state while forestalling the predatory state.

Paridis de Puteo: A Fifteenth-Century Civilian’s Concept of Papal Sovereignty

1987 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 369-392
Author(s):  
Diana Perry
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Fundamental Study ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Modern Mind ◽  
Political Evaluation ◽  
City State ◽  
The Relationship

Sovereignty—suprema potestas—in the later Middle Ages was not blessed with Austinian simplicity: it was a complex and contradictory thing. Held by the ecclesiastical and lay powers, held by pope, emperor, king, and city-state, few populi were subjected to one authority alone. Not only did there exist a hierarchy of sovereign powers in the Western community, de iure and de facto, but the suprema potestas was in itself limited. It was the extent of this limitation and the degree of sovereignty possessed by the various governments which exercised, to a very large extent, the minds of later medieval and Renaissance jurists. A major reordering of the relationship between the spiritual and secular authorities was occasioned with the propounding of the via media by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Thomistic doctrine did much to promote and enhance the importance of civil government at the expense of hierocratic theories, but, as Michael Wilks observes in his fundamental study of medieval sovereignty, it proved to be almost as dangerous to the concept of the societas humana as to that of the societas christiana. Quite simply, as long as moral standards were applied to earthly government, political evaluation was forced into the theological sphere, and so, to some degree, into the realm of papal determination. And to Thomistic influences, as Michael Wilks again remarks, the civilians nearly all succumbed. Laying their claims very largely upon the bases of Roman law and Aristotle, legists expounded a profoundly secular philosophy; but the seemingly logical conclusion—logical, that is, to the modern mind—that secular man was freed from the theological order was not reached. The pope retained both a unique degree of dignitas and a superior degree of authority; he was head of the populus christiana, and this awesome position bestowed upon him certain ultimate rights and responsibilities in the affairs of secular corpora, even though these corpora were sovereign entities. In other words, papal sovereignty, although increasingly restricted and relegated to the realm of theory as the early modern State evolved, none the less remained a potent force; indeed, as it will be seen, in a particular aspect it fulfilled for the jurist a critical need of the young State.

scholarly journals Servitude and Work at the Dawn of the Early Modern Era The Devaluation of Salaried Workers and the “Undeserving Poor”

2015 ◽  
Vol 70 (01) ◽  
pp. 77-85
Author(s):  
Giacomo Todeschini
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Rationality ◽  
Salaried Workers ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Undeserving Poor

Abstract Thomas Piketty’s analysis of the way that neoliberal economists use false meritocracy to justify growing economic inequality invites historians to reconsider the representation of workers in the economic thought and administrative politics of preindustrial Western Europe. This renewed focus on those termed mercenarii in theological, economic, and legal texts, namely salaried workers, shows that since the thirteenth century the literate elites of Christian Europe have interpreted manual labor as the sign of a competence that was useful but also socially and politically devalorizing. The ancient Roman conception of wages as auctoramentum servitutis, or evidence of servitude, reemerges at the end of Middle Ages in the guise of a complex theological, legal, and governmental discourse about the intellectual incompetence and necessary political marginality of salaried workers as manual laborers. At the dawn of the early modern era, the representation of salaried labor as a social condition corresponding to a state of servitude and lack of intellect characterizes both literary works and the economic rationality embodied by the first “scientific” economists.

The Reformation and Early Modern Periods

2020 ◽  
pp. 26-34
Author(s):  
Katrina Jennie-Lou Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Christmas Trees ◽  
Radical Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Catholic Churches

From the sixteenth through to the eighteenth centuries, Christians in Western Europe and North America celebrated Christmas in a variety of ways. Some of the practices or elements of celebration are familiar as they are still a part of many Christmas celebrations today, such as gift-giving, hospitality, feasting, singing, and decorating with greenery and Christmas trees. Other aspects of Christmas revelry were reduced during this period, as reformers in both the Protestant and Catholic Churches worked to rid the holiday of some of its excessive forms of festivity, such as misrule, social inversion, or superstitious practices. While in some areas, namely Scotland, England, and New England, radical reformers, including the Puritans, did away with Christmas festivities in the late-sixteenth and early- to mid-seventeenth centuries, these legal strictures were difficult to enforce and were not long-lasting. Instead, in both Protestant and Catholic countries, Christmas celebrations continued, though they often changed from what they had been in the Middle Ages. By the nineteenth century, traditions such as Christmas carols, Christmas trees, Nativity scenes, and Saint Nicholas iconography had been established that were taken up and popularized on a wider scale, but claims that those traditions were not invented until the nineteenth century are often rather overstated. Instead, many of these traditions grew and blossomed throughout the early modern period, sometimes despite radical Reformation attempts to get rid of Christmas, sometimes because of reforms in its celebration.

500 Jahre Rezeption der Reformation in Siebenbürgen und Ungarn: Anfänge und Netzwerke von Konfessionspluralismus in der Überlappungszone von West- und Ostkirche

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Ulrich A. Wien
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Joint Effort ◽  
Influence Zone ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Reformation

Abstract This thematic issue of the Journal of Early Modern Christianity focuses on the reception of the Reformation in Transylvania and especially on the development of Protestant churches oriented towards Luther and influenced by Melanchthon. In the late Middle Ages, Transylvania had become part of the cultural influence zone of Central Europe, but throughout the sixteenth century the region became permeated by religious developments in Western Europe too. Here, a very peculiar constellation of religious pluralism and co-existence emerged, and the different contributions examine the premises and networks behind these dynamics. In this joint effort, it becomes clear how Transylvania turned into a pioneer region of religious freedom, as it witnessed simultaneously the development of Catholic, Orthodox and various Protestant confessional cultures.

scholarly journals Astrological Medicine and the Popular Press in Early Modern England

2005 ◽  
Vol 09 (01) ◽  
pp. 73-93
Author(s):  
Louise Curth
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
University Curriculum ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
The University ◽  
Huge Variety

For many centuries the study of the stars was considered to be a science in western Europe. In the middle ages both astrology and astronomy, thought be the practical and theoretical parts of the scientific study of the celestial heavens, were taught as part of the university curriculum. The advent of printing in the late fifteenth century resulted in a huge variety of publications that provided the general public with access to this knowledge. This essay will examine the major role that almanacs, which were cheap, mass-produced astrological publications, played in disseminating information about astrological medical beliefs and practices to a national audience.

The Peace of God

2021 ◽  
pp. 104346312110657
Author(s):  
Andrew Young
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
Clear Delineation ◽  
Residual Claimants

Scholars have argued that the politically fractured landscape of medieval Western Europe was foundational to the evolution of constitutionalism and rule of law. In making this argument, Salter and Young (2019) have recently emphasized that the constellation of political property rights in the High Middle Ages was polycentric and hierarchical; holders of those rights were residual claimants to the returns on their governance and sovereign. The latter characteristics—residual claimancy and sovereignty—imply a clear delineation of jurisdictional boundaries and their integrity. However, historians’ description of the “feudal anarchy” that followed the tenth-century disintegration of the Carolingian Empire does not suggest clearly delineated and stable boundaries. In this paper, I highlight the role of the Peace of God movement in the 11th and 12th centuries in delineating and stabilizing the structure of political property rights. In terms of historical political economy, the Peace of God movement provides an important link between the early medieval era and the constitutional arrangements of the High Middle Ages.

The organization and rise of land and lease markets in northwestern Europe and Italy, c. 1000–1800

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. P. VAN BAVEL
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Main Determinant ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Institutional Organization

ABSTRACTIn the course of the late Middle Ages and early modern period, in Western Europe, ways of transferring and redistributing land outside the market were replaced by market transactions. This, however, was by no means a general and unilinear process, but one that displays strong regional differences and temporal discontinuities. This article aims to gain more insight in the factors underlying these differences, by reconstructing and analysing the institutional organization of exchange in land and lease markets. The analysis, undertaken for northwestern Europe and Italy, points to the socio-political context as a main determinant of this organization.

Pietists and Kibbitzers

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-134
Author(s):  
Haym Soloveitchik
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Hasidei Ashkenaz

This chapter offers a reply to the criticism on the essay presented in the previous chapter. It focuses on Edward Fram's article, 'German Pietism and Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Polish Rabbinic Culture'. Fram's article shows that German Pietism as a radical religious and social movement was no more influential in Poland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than it had been in medieval western Europe. In retrospect, it appears that it could hardly have been otherwise. The standard Sefer Ḥasidim, first published, as noted by Fram, in Bologna (1538) and quickly republished in Basel (1580) and Kraków (1581), is a compound work, opening with the conventional pietism of the first 152 sections and continuing with the radical one of the German Pietists. For every passage of radical pietism there is a counter-passage of the conventional sort, the result being that no one could infer from the work any coherent religious position. And, as Fram points out, Polish ethicists and thinkers were singularly uninclined to the distinctive doctrines of German Pietism and never reproduced those passages that expressed the idiosyncratic agenda of Ḥasidei Ashkenaz. His conclusions simply extend those of the author about the Middle Ages to eastern Europe in the early modern period.

From College and Universitas to University

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher I. Beckwith
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter examines the evolution of the college and universitas to university. The madrasa, the medieval Islamic college, appeared in Central Asia at least two centuries before the first college founded in Western Europe. The madrasa is an Islamicized form of the earlier Central Asian Buddhist college, the vihāra. The earliest three “universities”—the universitas guilds of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford—appear at approximately the same time in history, the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. The term “university” replaced studium generale by the end of the Middle Ages, marking the merger of the universitas, the studium generale, and the college into the early modern college-university. The chapter shows that the subsequently founded universities of Europe mostly followed the early Parisian model at first, with a universitas guild of masters plus a number of colleges.

VIOLENCE AND CIVILITY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 593-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRA SHEPARD
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Europe

Violence in early modern Europe, 1500–1800. By Julius R. Ruff. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xii+269. ISBN 0-521-59119-8. £13.95.The London mob: violence and disorder in eighteenth-century England. By Robert Shoemaker. London: Hambledon and London, 2004. Pp. xvi+393. ISBN 1-85285-389-1. £25.00.Outlaws and highwaymen: the cult of the robber in England from the middle ages to the nineteenth century. By Gillian Spraggs. London: Pimlico, 2001. Pp. x+372. ISBN 0-7126-6479-3. £12.50.The duel in early modern England: civility, politeness and honour. By Markku Peltonen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. x+355. ISBN 0-521-82062-6. £45.00.Swordsmen: the martial ethos in the three kingdoms. By Roger B. Manning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xvi+272. ISBN 0-19-926121-0. £47.00.Rebellion, community and custom in early modern Germany. By Norbert Schindler, translated by Pamela E. Selwyn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv+311. ISBN 0-521-65010-0. £55.00.The history of violence appears to hold a particular fascination for scholars of the early modern period. This is not least because it is so often deemed integral to the differences between modern and pre-modern culture and politics, despite the fact that this particular difference is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. The progressive decline and containment of violence – or at least certain forms of violence – has been central to narratives of state formation, the transition from courtesy to civility, a shift from aristocratic to bourgeois cultural hegemony, and the ‘civilizing process’ first theorized by Norbert Elias. Despite Michel Foucault's complication (if not rejection) of their teleological assumptions, such celebratory accounts of modernization have proved remarkably tenacious, albeit in a fragmented fashion. As the selection of books under review here illustrates, with the exception of Manning and, most notably, Peltonen, current scholarship is more likely to uphold, or to modify subtly, rather than to reject entrenched views of a gradual abeyance of violence in early modern Europe in response to imperatives of civility and politeness and to emergent state control.

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